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CUSTOMS officials raided actor Sylvester Stallone's harbourside
room at Sydney's Park Hyatt Hotel yesterday, as members of his
party were seen throwing objects out of the window.

Stallone had already denied bringing steroids into Australia
after he was questioned at Sydney Airport on Friday.

It is believed customs officers visited Stallone, 60, about 3pm,
and gave him a summons relating to prohibited substances. A summons
normally requires him or his lawyer to appear in court.

Here to promote his new film, Rocky Balboa, Stallone flew
out of Australia last night but not before customs officers
searched his private jet.

"We are aware that he has left the country," a customs spokesman
said.

On Friday, Stallone and five attendants were held until after
midnight after X-rays of his luggage found suspicious items,
believed to be a body building drug outlawed in Australia.

Laboratory tests will identify the material before any further
action is taken.

Stallone's minders warned yesterday that if the subject was
raised, interviews would be terminated. But the actor-director
insisted the items were not steroids. He would not identify them
other than to say it was something that he had taken for years and
was not dangerous.

He said the problem was the result of a clerical mistake.

Stallone admitted that the premise of the sixth instalment in
the Rocky series  a former champ aged almost 60
fightng the heavyweight world champion  was absurd.

"My wife was almost on the verge of hysterics when I told her I
wanted to do it. I felt a collective groan at least across America,
probably around the world, when I wanted to do it," he said.

But Stallone wanted to return to the inspiring drama of the
original Rocky.

"What made Rocky I work was not the fighting but the
actual journey the problems that he had getting a bit of
self-respect and finding love," he said. "I thought at the end of
your life, when all of that's taken away, that's also an
interesting journey that we're all going to go through."

After more than six years trying to persuade the studio to back
the movie, it has been surprisingly successful in the US.

Stallone is heading to Thailand to make Rambo IV: Pearl of
the Cobra. The other revived action hero deals with
Christianity, atheism and genocide in Burma.

"(I wanted to) forget the muscles, forget the headband and
really deal with the psyche of the warrior whose time has come and
passed. Are they really necessary in this world? In a way they
are," he said.

But Rocky will never climb back in the ring again. "
Rocky has been put to bed. I just wanted to go out with
respect for the character."